At its Oct. 22 regular meeting, the Miami Town Council approved two payment applications totaling more than $630,000, as recommended by the WWAB.

One bill for $561,222.63 was payable to Tucson-based KE&G Construction, Inc. for sewer work completed, while the other was for $69,483.68 to the Town of Miami for its sewer project-related expenses.

All payment applications are subject to agreement by the funding agency, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Prior to the vote at the Oct. 22 council meeting, Rick Powers gave a presentation on pavement replacement/repairs in Phases 3-5 of the project.

At the Oct. 18 WWAB meeting, KE&G’s subcontractor, InsituForm Technologies, made a presentation to better explain the process and the product.

InsituForm will be lining some deteriorated pipe with a “pipe within a pipe,” known as cured-in-pipe (CIPP), intended to increase the useful life of the pipe by decades.

During the Phase 2 project update at the Oct. 18 WWAB meeting, Powers said there was “not much more to add” from the Sept. 20 meeting, and no change in the status of Phase 2 from what Miami Town Manager Joe Heatherly previously reported.

Powers and Jesse Grinsteiner presented an update on Phases 3-5 of the project.

Grinsteiner said that, in Phase 3, all of the mainline pipe was 100 percent in, with only two clean-outs left to complete.

Phase 5 was about 29 percent complete, which is all of Cherry Flats. With the mainline on Sunset done, the project was probably closer to 50 percent complete, he said.

The 15-inch sewer is still on hold, as it was “in the Arizona Water Company’s hands,” with its design back to Cactus Alley at its corporate office.

Manholes were being rehabbed. Finding another 12 manholes that don’t look they need to be completely redone had resulted in big savings.

“Whatever they used for concrete 80 years ago is pretty good stuff,” Grinsteiner said.

Each manhole will be evaluated as they come across one.

Asphalt paving is still needed in all of Miami Gardens/Milton Road, and they also needed to put concrete back on Loomis Avenue, as well as part of Adonis Street.

Grinsteiner then reviewed the schedule, reporting that all that is left in Phase 3 is the CIPP and the asphalt patching.

In Phase 5, they are scheduled to finish Sunset, with the force main coming out of the lift station and putting some cleanouts in. The next area would be Pershing. With Arizona Water Company doing a relocate there the next week, KE&G would be there a week later to do some miscellaneous point repairs.

The project was slightly behind schedule due to the sewer house connections (HCS); however, they were going to begin working Fridays and putting both crews on them to get caught up.

Powers reported that there was “a little bit of savings,” with a total of 18 change orders, some of them negative change orders.

There have been some adjustments, such as the budget overrun paving Miami Gardens, due to cave-ins, as well as sandy soil that resulted in using more pavement than originally anticipated.

While it took more than $100,000 in extra paving to get it completed, the project budget is still in good shape.

Workers were still running into a lot of unmarked utilities, causing “a lot of redesigns and changes” that KE&G are “handling very well,” he said.

“They came up with an alternate idea to avoid putting the lift station in Depot Hill,” Powers said. “They are doing the best they can to use the plans as a guide, but there are a lot of changes in the field.”

In Cactus Alley, a bypass line would have to be created above ground until sewer construction is done. The good news was that it meant “new water and sewer lines when it’s all said and done,” he said.

Rick Hurula reported that the overall budget is under the initial projected amount. Those involved were “thinking outside the box,” in coming up with cost and time effective solutions to problems they could not have foreseen in the design phase.

By a 6-0 vote at its Feb. 8 meeting, the Miami Town Council approved the $10,447,648 contract with KE&G Construction for Phases 3-5 of the improvement project, as recommended by the Miami WWAB.